cult film freak: ENZO G. CASTELLARI DIRECTS FRANCO NERO IN 'STREET LAW'

Written by James M. Tate / 1/14/2024 / No comments / action , barbara bach , crime , enzo g. castellari , franco nero , italian , neo noir , seventies , vigilante

ENZO G. CASTELLARI DIRECTS FRANCO NERO IN 'STREET LAW'

1/14/2024 | No comment

Franco Nero in STREET LAW Year: 1974 Grade: C—

In 1974, Italy, the same year the vigilante theme had ignited Hollywood from the result of DEATH WISH, Enzo G. Castellari's STREET LAW... unlike Michael Winner's Charles Bronson vehicle where a perfect wife is brutally murdered... has an extremely weak reason/motivation for the main character — successful engineer Franco Nero — to seek revenge (which is actually the opposite of random-strike vigilantism)...

After having been kidnapped during a bank robbery and taken for what's the most exciting sequence during a rip-roaring, action-packed car-chase, something your average, typical guy probably would have talked about for years (and while he was beaten, he made incredibly stupid decisions at the bank to warrant such pummeling)...

Giancarlo Prete drives Franco Nero in STREET LAW

Afterward, Franco's so miffed, he investigates the not-as-yet-captured crooks, going from various lowlife hangouts in a rushed and contrived manner where, ironically, random hoodlum types seem like bad actors rehearsing for a bad crime flick: until he gets help from a more human, affable crook, both making for an uninteresting pair having so much commonness in common and yet STREET LAW does harbor a wonderfully groovy track Drivin' All Around, providing this popular Italian crime flick a stronger theme musically than thematically...

Overall, the usually intense Franco (who's unrealistic, awkward and uninteresting as a nebbish everyman, even when paired with future FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE actress/model Barbara Bach) seems merely along for the uneven and uneventful ride that even his creative-camera-wielding directorial collaborator Castellari can't save.

Franco Nero in STREET LAW

Barbara Bach in STREET LAW

Franco Nero and Barbara Bach in STREET LAW

From STREET LAW

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Tags : action , barbara bach , crime , enzo g. castellari , franco nero , italian , neo noir , seventies , vigilante

James M. Tate

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